In Year 6, we have been learning about the artist Augusta Savage (1892–1962), who overcame poverty, racism, and sexual discrimination to become one of America’s most influential 20th-century artists.
Augusta grew up in a poor family in America. She discovered as a child that she enjoyed making small sculptures and had a real talent for art. To make her sculptures she used red clay that she found around the area where she lived.
As an adult, Augusta Savage became known for creating amazing sculptures of people. Although they look as if they are made of metal, she couldn’t afford expensive materials so she made her sculptures out of clay and then painted them. Unfortunately, as the clay was fragile, most of her work no longer exists and there are only photographs to remind us.
In 1940 she retired from art and moved to a farm in New York where she taught others to create art instead.
She said, “I have created nothing really beautiful, really lasting, but if I can inspire one of these youngsters to develop the talent I know they possess, then my monument will be in their work.”
We have created our own sculptures, inspired by Augusta Savage’s work. We sketched faces and figures first, learning about representing proportion correctly. Then we made a figure out of wire and used that as the ‘skeleton’ for our clay sculptures. Finally, we painted our sculptures with metallic paint as she used to do.
We learned that it is much more difficult than we thought to create life-like figures with the correct proprtions and we gained even more respect for Augusta Savage’s talent. Also, unfortunately, as you can see, some of our clay work is just as fragile as hers!
Doing the clay sculptures was very hard but fun.I loved learning about Augusta Savage and I cant wait to do more clay sculptures and more art.
Thank you to Miss Siswick for teaching us about her.
Doing the clay sculpture was so fun but hard because you have to make the wire look like a person, then put the clay on and once it is dry you have to paint it . I liked doing this because it show our talent and what we can do.
It was very fun learning about Augusta Savage and making our sculptures and also painting them. I hope we will do more sculpture next year.
It was very fun making our sculptures and I have enjoyed learning about Augusta Savage.
Thank you Miss Siswick for teaching us about her.
It was amazing although the wire making was hard.
I enjoyed learning about Augusta Savage.